Resource Sharing in Households with Children: A Generalized Model and Empirical Evidence from the UK

Abstract

AbstractWe suggest a generalized collective model of consumption that extends Browning, Chiappori, and Lewbel to couples with children. Economies of scale are defined using a general form of Barten scales. We identify resource sharing among household members and, originally, the contribution of each parent to the expenditure on children. We provide a tractable estimation approach based on a simple demand system for male and female clothing, that is, two exclusive goods commonly available in standard surveys. We illustrate the method on thirty years of expenditure data for the UK. We relax the independence of the sharing rule on total expenditure and actually find that women’s shares increase with living standards. This, and progress in education levels, explains most of the reduction in intra-household inequality over the period.